Neu! Post-Truth Poetics DAY TWENTY-ONE – Charles G Lauder Jr.

Surviving

There’s a river that runs behind the housewhere most go to murder,hands around the throat, head held down.

A day doesn’t go by when a bodyisn’t being dragged to the water’s edge.There’s not much resistance as I stare

at the back of the empty skull; I neverlook at the face—all complete strangers.One could be my family but I’ll never know.

I rummage through the pocketsbefore the current takes them awayand then go back inside for dinner.

Some are of color, some pale.I never give a thought to ghostsor what their life was like.

It’s a fair assumption I wouldn’thave liked them. At some pointthey probably would have shot me

or my kin, or stolen from me. So muchof what I have is less than whatmy father and grandfather had.

Charles G Lauder Jr was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, and has lived in the UK since 2000. His poems have appeared internationally, and he was highly commended in the 2015 Stanza Poetry Competition. His pamphlet Bleeds was published in 2012 by Crystal Clear Creators. His forthcoming pamphlet Camouflaged Beastswill be published in spring 2017 by Black Light Engine Room. He is the Assistant Editor for the poetry journal The Interpreter’s House.

New Boots – the Anthology!

A selection of 100 poems from the project is now available in book form from Smokestack (price £8.99) - go here to order.

"Why the devil I throw my money away for that which the blockheads wish?" (G.F. Handel)

Welcome poets, polemicists and the disbelieving masses

The 2015 General Election made manifest the great sea-change that had been occurring in UK politics over the last fifteen to twenty years. Previous certainties, like Labour’s Scottish hegemony, are no more. Older patterns, like Conservative dominance of England, reasserted themselves.

The idea of the UK as a single country has been replaced by a plurality of identities, some long known to the other countries and regions, others formulating themselves as time passes. For that reason, we thought it might be an interesting experiment to chart the responses of those unacknowledged legislators, the poets, over the first 100 days of the new dispensation.

We ended up publishing a poem a day for 138 days, each one responding to some aspect of the new unrealpolitik. We then set to editing a book of 100 poems in order to, as we thought then, conclude the project.

However, the results of the EU Referendum showed that the slow slew in British political identity toward disillusionment and division had reached a breaking point that made even more evident the contrasts already indicated by the Scottish referendum and the General Election. We felt we had to begin again...

Stay with us, and see what the hell happens next. Oh fuck, it's Trump.

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